Chocolate
by Doll of the Devil
Summary: According to some humans, chocolate is the only true remedy for sadness. One-shot set on Ciel's Birthday. Sebastian/Ciel (but not explicit). Sebastian's POV. Kind of fluffy.


**Author's Note:** This is an early Christmas gift for my dear friend, Thegraybluekitten, who is convinced of the fact that chocolate makes everything better and it's this idea that inspired me to write this in the first place. (That and the drawing by Yana Toboso of Ciel on his birthday.)

- Set around midnight on Ciel's birthday: the young noble is sad and what kind of butler would Sebastian be if he could not bring a little comfort for his master... (Happy 138th, darling!)

* * *

**Chocolate**

"I was just – oh, it's you…"

The shimmering glass doors that led to the balcony on the second floor of the Phantomhive manor were well-oiled and opened without even the slightest of creaks, but Sebastian, who too could move as silently as a ghost and had known his master to be in one of his moods - which were becoming ever so more frequent these days - had pushed the doors audibly shut behind his back as soon as he had stepped onto the stones, to alert his master of his presence and to purposely startle him from the worrisome thoughts that had caused his slim brows to crease and his youthful face to consort into a frown.

Approaching his master with light, cautious steps, the butler took note of his turned, tense shoulders, his startled expression – much like a child caught with his hand in the biscuit jar right before dinner – the nervous pounding of his heart, and the redness of his cheeks, nose and ears, brought on by the cold; his lips were pale and turned downwards at the corners as soft breaths escaped them, visible in the chill near-winter's air.

"I thought," Sebastian began carefully, balancing the silver tray and the steaming mug on it expertly on his right hand, "that the young master might like some of the hot chocolate the servants insisted I'd prepare in celebration of the weather."

The boy blinked, stared, then regained his composure and wordlessly accepted the hot drink offered in his pale, uncovered hands – pink fingertips curling around the warmth. Bringing it to his lips, the butler watched, tray pressed to his right side, as the boy carefully sipped at the hot liquid - the dark, savouring fluid slipping past the two darkening petals, down his throat - his slightly more distinctive Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed, and his cheeks faintly growing rosier as the heat spread throughout his body. His lithe frame, which he had been wise enough to cover with his woollen and fur coat, then turned away from the butler and the manor with a calmer but just as weighty heart and back towards the gardens that lay ahead and onto which he had been gazing before, the faded green covered entirely by the first snowfall of the year; it's pure whiteness a sharp contradiction to the day and the cause of his master's discomfort.

December the fourteenth, like every other year, was gifted (burdened) with stark-white and ivory innocence covering the whole of England, with a chill in the air, with the ringing of bells far away in high church steeples, and streets and shops crowed in Christmas anticipation.

Unexplainable cheerfulness filled the hearts of those silly, naive, and _useless_ humans, who found great happiness in the company of their ever-present families, and it was this cheer, this cruel reminder that, like every other year, had upset the young Lord of Phantomhive so; for it was the day – this day – that he had lost every single thing that mattered to him and all of what he had never truly appreciated in its whole worth before it was ruthlessly stolen from him.

The boy shivered – whether from cold or from memories, the butler could not tell, and Sebastian, startled by his own humane desires, would have dearly liked to place his own warm arm around the boy's shoulders as some strange kind of comfort he wasn't even sure he could offer. As a perhaps more appropriate alternative, he straightened the thick hood of his coat and adjusted the expensive cashmere scarf to wrap it more firmly around his pale throat; a slim, ivory column he could break _oh,_ _so easily_ with just the slightest of pressures, but which he only wished to trail his own alabaster and black-tipped digits along in soft caresses.

Perhaps, the softening weather had softened his black, demonic spirit as well, he thought demurely.

Drawing back from where he had bowed down to fiddle with his charge's clothing, Sebastian ushered his usual smirk (it had slipped away in his quiet pondering) back onto his face and regarded the young male before him with curious eyes.

"You were just - what, my Lord?"

A slight jump, the dark liquid sloshing against the rim of the hefty china, yet not spilling over, and the insistent little heart of the little Lord skipping a beat before pounding more deliberately against his ribcage, much like a bird suddenly roused from its sleep in its little metal confinement; the young Lord was startled by the question that suddenly interrupted the calm silence between the two of them, pulled away from his contemplations.

"I beg your pardon?" he exclaimed, just a bit too anxious. The demon joined him where he stood at the banister, just two steps closer, at the boy's left side, for then he would not have to strain his neck too much to look up at his butler, and switched the tray from his right hand to his left.

"You said, young master, when I entered, that you 'were just'?"

"Oh…" He fell silent, again.

"Well?" the butler pressed, "What were you 'just' doing in the middle of the night in your sleepwear – _lacking proper footwear_ - out in the cold on the balcony?"

"I was just," his Lord muttered, blood rushing nervously through his blue veins in short, quick, rapid bursts, "thinking."

"Thinking?"

"Yes…"

"And of what, if I may ask?" the servant boldly asked, seeking out the heavenly blue of the boy's large, uncovered eye. His own eyes then falling on tan-coloured patch concealing the orb in which the mark of their bond – their contract - lay inscribed, before trailing along the soft contours of his plump cheeks, his slightly parted lips, and down his clothed body, lingering just a tad too long on the pale, shivering thighs - the soft but hardly notable breeze of air that rhythmically swirled past them in the dark night lifted the hem of the young male's nightshirt just enough to expose half an inch more or so of his soft, silken skin – and finally he let his gaze rest at the two small feet and ten wriggling toes that had turned as pink as blooming carnations upon the cold stone Sebastian had swept clean of the powdery, white frost this very afternoon.

The Earl drew a breath, light and shuddering, and the demon's burning eyes shot up to glance once more upon his master's face, draped in a masked expression that would have hidden his inner turmoil from any human onlookers well enough, had they been present. Sebastian, however, inhuman as he was, could clearly see the sorrow, grief, and despair that lay behind the clouds in his eye.

"Life," the boy answered eventually, dropping his gaze from his butler's face to the remaining molten-chocolate-and-milk concoction in his half-full – half-empty cup. Staring as if he could see the past, the future, all of time – perhaps – swirling in the dark brown liquid, before taking another deep swallow of the sugary-sweetness; disinterested and fearful.

Sebastian, having had so much more life than his young charge could possibly even imagine, had often been told by those silly, ignorant humans, that chocolate was the only true remedy against sadness and despair and at times like these, even if he was not entirely sure if that statement was actually true, the cocoa did soothe his little master enough for him not to question them.

For time being, Sebastian was silent. Neither satisfied, nor displeased with his master's simple answer that said either nothing at all or rather all too much, he gazed out over the manor's fields, the road, the trees, the dark sky, stars twinkling happily now they had been gifted their time to shine – calm and restful even in their cheer. Until _suddenly_, one daring, little thing shuddered and fidgeted and sparkled all the brighter in its - anger, fear, or joy still? – and then moved with all the determination of one who has the strength to stand and _fight_, much like his own bright, little star, and soared through the sky, downwards, to escape far behind the horizon.

That small, brave twinkle was at once, like humans are apt to do for they travel in masses, followed by another companion – and then a third and a fourth, until the quiet night sky was turned into a spectacle of dazzling, shimmering, blinding, beautiful light, reflecting on the snow, the water sputtering from the fountain in the centre of the garden, and most specially his master's left eye – widened in surprise, wonder, excitement - his pupil large beneath his pretty lashes.

"Sebastian," he whispered and, stunned by the sight of what was most likely his very first meteor shower - such a short, fragile life he has had - and utterly captivated by its rare and, to his young gaze, inexplicable beauty, he smiled – truly, honestly.

"Sebastian…"

With that same smile, his master turned his stare to him and Sebastian, equally captivated by heaven reflected in that pool of deepest, darkest blue, clutched the silver tray fiercely in his left hand, shuddering with the intense burning of the devilish seal seared into his inhuman flesh and the near-overwhelming blazing of _something _that stirred deeply in the very pits of his blackened soul – fervent and all-consuming.

He took a breath, smirked as if nothing out of the ordinary had transpired and whispered, voice light and airy and as fleeting as the stars:

"Happy birthday, young master…"

**The End**


End file.
